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Once Upon a City: A tale of two Toronto City Halls

For architect Edward James Lennox, it may well have been the best and worst of times.

He had slaved for years to deliver what was undisputedly a magnificent City Hall, an ornate sandstone edifice on Queen St. W. with a 103-metre clock towering over Bay St.

As the First World War unfolded in Europe in 1915, the cry for volunteer recruits in Canada produced massive rallies, such as this one at City Hall. The Canadian Expeditionary Force was created specifically for the war and its ranks numbered more than 600,000 before the end. All told, there were 60,661 Canadian dead by 1918. The Old City Hall Cenotaph was unveiled on Nov. 11, 1925, to commemorate Torontonians who lost their lives. (Toronto Star Archives)

Other famous visitors to Old City Hall included Jimi Hendrix, shown here in June 1969 with a friend, as he faced a charge of illegal possession of narcotics. He was arrested at Toronto International Airport and put on a Maple Leaf Gardens show that night. (Toronto Star Archives)

Toronto Mayor Phil Givens and singer Bobby Curtola at a Toronto-A-Go-Go event during opening week celebrations of new City Hall in September 1965. (Toronto Star Archives)

Toronto Maple Leafs Captain George Armstrong holds the Stanley Cup and looks up at the twin spires of City Hall during a civic reception for the victorious team in 1967. A crowd of 30,000 packed the streets for the affair. (Toronto Star Archives)

But years later he was still fighting for tens of thousands owed for services rendered.

Let’s see, there were the three years of design work, 520 meetings at $10 a pop, photos for progress reports, supervision of “gangs of workmen,” and on and on, meticulously annotated in the final tally of $242,870.82.

Thousands of Torontonians greeted King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, shown here at the front of the platform at City Hall, when they visited on a North American tour in 1939. Spectators also crowded at nearby Bay Street office windows and on the roof of the Ritz Hotel.

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Published on the front page of the Evening Star (later renamed the Toronto Daily Star) on Sept. 6, 1907, the statement was submitted eight years after the stout oak doors opened for business — a delay Lennox blamed on disputes with contractors.

Civic officials, who had already paid him $61,000, were “agog” at the outstanding amount, according to the Star. They refused to pay, Lennox sued and the case went to court. More than four years later, he abruptly accepted the city’s offer of $60,000. Tainted by acrimony and scandal, the birth of Toronto’s third City Hall was finally concluded.

It’s a timely tale as the landmark building turns 116 on Sept. 18. But its successor and neighbour one block over on Queen St. W. has a no-less colourful past. Celebrating its 50th birthday five days earlier, Toronto’s current City Hall has had its share of highs and lows, architecturally and otherwise.

There was controversy over site, cost, concept and choice of a non-Canadian architect. Former mayor Nathan Phillips was laughed at when he suggested throwing the design challenge out to the world in 1955, but two years later, council agreed.

Viljo Revell, a Finn who was picked from more than 510 entries from 42 countries, produced the now–iconic futuristic curved towers embracing a dome-shaped council chamber.

Viljo Revell, a Finn who was picked from more than 510 entries from 42 countries, produced the now-iconic futuristic curved towers embracing a dome-shaped council chamber.

“Some laughed at the design,” the Star said on opening day Sept. 13, 1965. “Now most are bragging.”

“Some laughed at the design,” the Star said on opening day Sept. 13, 1965. “Now most are bragging.” City Hall’s twin towers are twinned in this June 1967 photo.

The weeklong celebration of the $31-million building was called the “biggest housewarming in the city’s history.” Governor-General Georges Vanier used five-metre scissors to cut a 40-metre ribbon as fireworks exploded and fighter planes flew over 20,000 heads in the square, the site of a crowded slum a century ago but now spruced up and named in Phillips’ honour.

The soul and spirit of the city was reflected in the architecture, Vanier told the crowd and long list of luminaries that included prime minister Lester Pearson, premier John Robarts and the widow of Revell, who had died the year before.

But no one was bursting with more pride than Phillips, the “mayor of all the people,” who had dreamt of creating “the most magnificent public building in the world.”

One of the largest concrete pours at the time ― some 1,000 tons of it ―in the construction of new City Hall was completed in early 1964 to form the dome-shaped roof of the clamshell council chamber. Two cranes poured the concrete at a rate of 70 tons an hour.

Inside, the soaring architecture echoed with “oohs and ahhs” from thousands of visitors getting their first look at the city’s new headquarters. The occasion wasn’t entirely glitch-free as overcrowded elevators stalled and confused guests wound up in the underground garage by mistake.

But the 94,000 square feet of imported plate glass didn’t shatter, thanks to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s last-minute decision to substitute fireworks for cannon fire in the performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

By all accounts the festivities were a resounding success, with everything from go-go dancers to opera singers entertaining the masses.

But if the fanfare was loud and long, it was a different story in 1899, when the opening of “Old” City Hall was a low-key affair.

The ceremony presided over by Lord Mayor John Shaw and 24 aldermen in frock coats was modest “with no pomp, pride or bunting,” the Evening Star reported.

A flag-draped bucket hoists the official party to the top of Old City Hall tower for the laying of the last stone in July 1898. Barely visible in this photo is Mayor John Shaw. His wife is in the middle, with the architect of the building, E. J. Lennox, at the front of the bucket to her left.

“To the very large audience present the new civic palace appeared wonderfully beautiful. All that nature and art could do had contributed to the effect.”

One alderman was so moved he was carried out weeping, the paper said, adding his emotional state could be attributed to the decade of council fights, plebiscites over rising costs, contractor scandals and construction problems.

The Star got in a dig at the $2.5-million price tag that had ballooned from the original budget of $600,000: “The new City Hall is open at last, but not so wide as are the pocket books of the people who are paying for the elephant.”

Old City Hall architect Edward James Lennox is rumoured to have carved caricatures of Toronto politicians in the stone gargoyles over the building’s arches.

Lennox, who was inspired by American architect Henry Hobson Richardson’s Romanesque-Revival style, incorporated mosaic tiles, marble columns, a grand staircase and spectacular stained-glass window in the combination courthouse and municipal government offices.

Wardrobes, work tables, handrails and doorknobs were all blessed with Lennox’s exquisite detailing. But when the prolific and talented designer, who went on to build Casa Loma and the King Edward Hotel, told council he wanted a plaque bearing his name at City Hall, he was refused.

Old City Hall’s curving staircase, marble pillars and terrazzo flooring are beauty points that have led admirers to fight for the building's preservation over the years.

Legend has it that he got even with argumentative aldermen by carving their caricatures in the stone gargoyles over the arches. He added his own likeness and initials for good measure.

Decades later, when the outgrown building was replaced by new digs, it narrowly escaped demolition to make room for the Toronto Eaton Centre when public outcry saved it.

Plans for the Eaton Centre, which would soon alter the city's skyline and was originally destined to destroy Old City Hall, were shown in scale models to Metro and city council members in March 1965. Looking over the model from left are Douglas Haldenby, architect for Eaton Centre, Controller Herbert Orliffe, Metro auditor Gordon Cuthbertson, Controller William Dennison, Alderman Thomas Wardle and Prof. James Murray, town planner for the centre. Controller Dennison lead the fight to save Old City Hall.

A comment published back in 1899 could very well apply to the unveiling of both old and new City Halls: Citizens “must have felt that a new era in the city’s history had begun.” To quote Mr. Dickens, it was the spring of hope.

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